Photofile: Issei Suda

An illuminating introduction to little-known photographer Issei Suda, who captured the soul of Japan old and new. The work of Issei Suda (1940–2019) is distinct in contemporary avant-garde Japanese photography for its celebration of the beauty of the everyday. His black and white pictures reflect on apparent banality of urban life, capturing ‘the little surprises usually ignored in our world’: the shadow of a figure, the shapes of the street, the expressions on stranger's faces. Suda’s practice revealed the tensions between old and new Japan, juxtaposing the ingrained visual traditions of Japanese culture with the prevailing western vocabulary of fashion, advertising and leisure, as seen through his observant and tender lens. In Thames & Hudson's acclaimed Photofile series, this compact survey features sixty of Suda's best photographs. The Photofile Series Photofile brings together the best work of the world’s greatest photographers in an attractive, accessible, pocket-sized format. Handsome and collectable, the books are printed to the highest standards. Each one contains over sixty full-page reproductions printed in superb duotone, together with a critical introduction and a full bibliography.